Full Circle
by SashaElizabeth
Summary: Sequel to Seventy Two Months. Kate is back and is prepared to get back into action at NCIS, and Gibbs' heart. KIBBS all the way.
1. Chapter 1

AN: the characters belong to CBS. Enjoy!

Chapter One

I was grateful that Gibbs hadn't pressed for details as we walked back to my hotel that first night after the rain had stopped. After six years of longing for him, while never knowing when or if we'd meet again, it was more than I could express in words. At least I was able to tell him how much he'd been on my mind. As soon as Gibbs and I had said goodbye, I'd returned to my hotel room with a renewed sense of purpose. It was late and I felt even more tired than I had expected after the emotional reunion with Gibbs and Ducky. I sat down on the edge of the bed and turned the television on without sound. Next, I found my MP3 player, connected it to its speaker dock and started the music. Due to the endless period I'd spent alone, I found it nearly intolerable to sleep without some kind of sound in the room with me. My thoughts were in a jumble, racing with all the possibilities the future held. Being with Gibbs and discovering our mutual love was a beginning I couldn't have imagined only one week ago. He wanted me back on his team, which both relieved and slightly worried me. The Director had explained the changes in the team over the past few years, including the fact that Ari's half-sister, Ziva, had taken my place. From the way Vance had described it, I gathered the distinct impression that she was a valued and loved person on the team. The irrational fear that the man who loved me would be the only one to welcome my return began to torment me. It took almost two hours for me to fall asleep, but thankfully, I was spared any dreams.

A few hours later, I woke to the sound of my cell phone alarm. As soon as I turned it off, the phone rang. It was none other than Gibbs, sounding as if he had been up for hours.

"Good morning!" he said in his velvety, tender, smooth voice. "It's great to be able to call you."

"It's great to hear your voice and talk to you too, Gibbs," I replied. Stifling a yawn, I could tell that it had been a late night.

"Want to go out for breakfast?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah! About an hour work for you?"

"Sounds great," Gibbs stated before stopping. "Do you want to see anyone else? Not if you don't want to - if you're ready."

"Who?" I asked him, thinking of only one person I'd want to see so early after my return.

"How about Abby?" It was as if Gibbs could read my mind. "Perfect!" I smiled at the thought of my best friend.

An hour later, I took the elevator down to the lobby, my heart pounding quickly in my chest. The same haunting idea of everyone moving on without me circled in each thought like sharks circling their prey. Any doubt I fought, however, was suddenly gone. I knew I had finally arrived home when I looked across the lobby at the man I loved and my best friend.

Abby let out a shriek of joy and ran toward me, her black pigtails flying and tears streaming down her face. "I've missed you so much!" she said through her tears. "Are you really here? For real?

"Yes," I assured her, "It's all real, I promise you." Gibbs grinned tenderly as Abby and I chatted for a few minutes as soon as we had both regained our composure.

"So, ladies, how about getting some brunch?"

Abby laughed. "Why, Gibbs, I didn't know or imagine that you knew about brunch. Isn't it only breakfast in the Marines?" she teased.

Soon we were sitting in the hotel restaurant, deciding not just what to order, but how to spend our day. Gibbs flipped through the weekend edition of the newspaper.

"We really should look at the real estate listings," he said, glancing at the housing section. "You can't stay in the hotel forever."

"True," Abby said. "Time to go get a whole houseful of furniture. Project! What do you say to that?"

In all truth, I hadn't really thought of it. In New York City, I had only acquired a handful of items, namely my music collection and books. It had been so long since I had considered having a place to call home.

Gibbs cleared his throat, then paused for a mind-clearing breath. "You may not need to do that, Kate," he said in a quiet voice. "I've never told anyone this, but I kept your things from before...all of them."

Abby burst into tears, as did I. How must he have felt over those six years, living with the ghost of a love he thought was lost? How could he know all I'd want upon my return was something familiar?

By days' end, we had looked at several houses and settled on one which happened to be just down the street from Gibbs. I was especially happy that we would be so close. I'd had enough isolation for the rest of my life. The other thing accomplished by that afternoon was an absolute miracle, considering my worries from the previous night.

Gibbs brought the team over and we shared our long-overdue reunion, which had none of the nightmare about it. Things didn't even reach the level of my previous worries when I found myself looking into the eyes of an absolutely apprehensive appearing Ziva.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Ziva's eyes were nothing like her brother's. While a chilling senselessness personified him, his sister was different in every way. Her agitation at meeting me took me somewhat by surprise. However, despite this, I sensed a capacity for compassion and loyalty that her brother had lacked. Gibbs came over to us and made the expected appropriate introduction, although he had a tense smile pasted on his face the entire time.

Ziva spoke first. "I wish that people did not expect that we will get along badly," she commented in a factual tone of voice. "I can seen where they may feel that way because of my half-brother." She cleared her throat and looked downward at the floor with a pensive expression.

"But you aren't him," I said quietly, hoping to allay her concerns on the matter. "I can tell that you and he had nothing in common."

She looked up at me. "Thank you, Kate, for that. They said you were kind and understanding. And it is true."

"Thanks for taking care of the team," I said. "Don't let them know I said so, but they NEED it. So, does DiNozzo still act like an X-rated Peter Pan?"

Ziva smiled. "Yes!"

I laughed as I imagined his mischief.

Across the room, I could tell that Gibbs was getting more relaxed the longer that Ziva and I conversed.

The majority of the next year appeared to pass by as one may look through a photo album, landing on certain images of snapshots; just brief moments in time. There were the vignettes of my new house, complete with our entire team spending the long Fourth of July weekend painting and helping me get settled in. Abby and Tim had taken special care to set up what Abby had called the "Biggest, Baddest Stereo Ever". It lived up to its name in every sense of the word!

One day Abby surprised me with a knock at the door and a cardboard box in one hand. "I thought any house becomes more of a home with animals," she exclaimed with her typical Abby enthusiasm. "Since I can't have pets in my building and you've got this great new house with no four-legged friends, what do you say?" She moved the blanket in the box aside to reveal two silver and gray tabby kittens.

"They're so cute!" I reached into the box and lifted both kittens out. They were hardly any larger than my hand.

"Someone dropped them off at the shelter last week and they're up for adoption," Abby explained. "What do you think? They're both girls, by the way. Sisters!"

"I think I'll name them Jane and Maura," I said, grinning. Jane and Maura were characters in my favorite mystery series. "Thanks, Abs!"

"I've got everything you need in the car," she stated before running outside to bring in two cat beds, litter boxes, bowls, toys and much more.

The seasons changed slowly from summer to fall and into winter. Ducky hosted Thanksgiving at his new townhouse and it seemed for a few merciful hours that no time had passed at all since that confusing rainy spring and now. I had acquired a new appreciation for the Scotsman's storytelling in my six-year exile, so I lingered at the table for what seemed like hours as if in a trance just listening to his voice. It filled me with a warmth that told me that I was truly home. Home fell into place in bits and pieces in this same kind of feeling. Each moment led me closer, from working full-time at NCIS with Tim as my new partner to Christmas shopping with Abby and reveling in the first snowfall of the year.

Gibbs and I had been out for a walk around the neighborhood and were just returning to my house when fat, fluffy flakes began to fall. I felt like a little girl in my sense of wonder and delight at the snow. Gibbs held me closely and we started to dance to the music found only in the starlight and drifting snow. I closed my eyes and leaned into his warmth and the all-consuming security of his arms. As the snow collected not only around our feet but also in our hair and eyelashes, I leaned up to gaze into his cerulean blue eyes before sinking into a passionate kiss. I wished time could freeze just for us similar to the way I had hoped it could at Thanksgiving with my surrogate family all around me, wrapping me in a cloak of belonging again.


	3. Chapter 3

The characters do not belong to me.

Chapter Three

Abby Knows All About It

After giving Major Mass Spec a formal salute upon entering her lab one early spring day, Abby grinned to herself. She then started to laugh in delight over the secret plans she recently been made privy to. If anyone had walked by the lab at that moment, they would have chalked it all up to the scientist's eccentric personality. Although, in reality, she was feeling much more delighted than usual. The reason was the visit Gibbs had paid her a few days earlier.

"I need to tell you something, Abs," Gibbs had begun, "but you must promise not to tell anyone. Not anyone at all. ESPECIALLY not Kate! Do you think you can do that?"

Abby thought it over for a second. "Sure!" she exclaimed. "Gibbs, are you planning a surprise?" She beamed one of her famous thousand-watt smiles at him.

Gibbs nodded "You could say that again!" He handed her a Caf-Pow. "I not only need your silence, but also your advice."

"What can I do for you, Gibbs?"Abby asked.

"Matters of the heart," Gibbs said simply. Gibbs shuffled his feet. "That's the thing, Abs…I want to make it…memorable."

"You want to PROPOSE!" Abby nearly screamed with excitement.

Gibbs chuckled. "Might want to keep it down, Abs, or the whole building will know."

"Right!" Abby nodded. "It won't happen again. So, have you looked at a ring yet? We ladies take that stuff pretty seriously. How big is the rock?"

"Rock?" Gibbs repeated, clueless.

Abby was getting more hyper by the minute. "The DIAMOND, Gibbs, the DIAMOND!"

"That's why I'm here, Abby," Gibbs said. I'm in need of your expertise. Will you go shopping with me?"

"You bet!" Abby replied, totally enthused. "I'm ready!"

A few days later, Abby was once again working in her lab when I came in with a pensive expression.

"Abby?" Do you have a second?" I asked.

"Anytime," Abby answered with her typical enthusiastic grin. Even though it had been nearly a year since I had returned, it still felt new to Abby to see her long-lost best friend come walking into her lab.

"I need some advice of the musical nature," I said. Pulling a cd out of my purse, I fidgeted as I explained my plan to Abby. Her eyes lit up like a child on Christmas morning as we spoke. By the time I left the lab, I had my plans firmly made. All I needed were two plane tickets to New York City and a quick call to some of my friends there.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: the characters do not belong to me, neither does the music, Kate's first song is _Man On My Mind_ by Carly Simon, and her second is _Stick Around_ by Rachael Yamagata. Both of these talented artists are big inspirations of mine in writing and music.

**Chapter Four**

"This is the place," I said to Gibbs as we walked inside the tiny New York jazz club on an early afternoon in late May. It was just about a year to the date after our rediscovery of one another, and I wanted everything to be perfect.

He glanced around the coffeehouse atmosphere club, taking it all in, seeing that it was just as I described it to him countless times. In my stories of the club, I had told him all about sitting in the back as my newspaper colleagues played in their combo. Because I was under witness protection, I was sadly forced to turn down each invitation to sing with them. This had created a double regret in me. I was not only away from the man with whom I longed to spend my life, but I could not even express any of my feelings for him in song.

Music as my constant companion had changed me in radical ways. It loosened me up and I literally found my voice. It was absolutely had become the one thing in my world to which I could relate. So I did, and we became inseparable parts of one another. Now I wanted to welcome the man of my dreams to that intimate circle.

"Well, Gibbs, what do you think?" I asked.

"It's nice," he said. "Did you come here often?"

"Yes," I answered. "But I never got to sing. It was too risky. People could have recognized me."

"That's too bad," said Gibbs. "Maybe you can one day."

"I hope so," I replied. "It would be my dream."

Just then, the combo of newspaper employees walked in and took her places on stage. As they began to set up their instruments, I turned them with a wide grin. I was going to surprise Gibbs, and he was going to be thrilled.

"What?" Gibbs looked surprised and puzzled. "What's going on?"

"You'll see," I said with a mysterious smile as I approached the stage. once there, I nodded to the combo leader to signal the beginning of the musical intro. "Gibbs, I have wanted to do this for a very long time. Now I have my chance and I want to know what you think after it's done, ok?"

He nodded and grinned. "So this had been my surprise."

I stepped up to the microphone and began to speak. "I want to do a couple of sings here for someone special who just came back into my life. This is for you. The first song is for all the times I've missed you and the second one is for today. I hope you enjoy them, Gibbs."

_I've got my mind on my man again, I've got my man on my mind... He's everything to me, he's something more special than any amount of looking is going to find... _I sang passionately with the remembrance of each time I'd played this song and teared up as I thought of Gibbs. Performing on this stage was every bit the thrill I'd imagined it to be as I sat in the back, unable to join in. All of the lost opportunities vanished and culminated in the joy of my present moment. When I had finished, I looked out into the audience and met Gibbs' eyes. They were glistening with tears, just as mine were.

But this was no time for being caught in the past. My next song was all about the future. We had enough wasted time behind us.

"I want to dedicate this next song to our future, Jethro. I love you," I said.

The band started the music and I began the sing I'd heard not very long before. As soon as I had heard it, I knew that it had the two of us written all over it. The music was slow and bluesy, perfect for such an intimate setting as the half-hidden club on a lesser known street of New York City.

_Baby, you've caught my eye, _  
_I think I might need you to stay a while_  
_For I haven't seen a smile _  
_Quite as lovely as yours for a while_  
_Stick around, I'll be good to you._

_Baby, I think you know_  
_When I get my arms around you, boy, _  
_I won't let go_  
_When you find a spark_  
_To awaken your precious heart_  
_You stick around and you see it through_

_I've been in trouble before with my rushing in_  
_But I'm willing to take that chance again_  
_And if we get caught in some crazy wind_  
_We can just get swept away_  
_What do you say?_

_Baby, make up your mind_  
_Cause you know I don't want to waste time_  
_We don't have a lot to lose_  
_We both decide to choose_  
_Stick around, I'll be good to you_  
_Yeah, stick around, I'll be good to you!_

The applause at the end was all I had dreamed of, but I was distracted when Gibbs ambled to the stage and bent down on one knee.

"Stick around, huh?" His eyes were smiling. "Then there's just one thing to say to you at a time like this." He pulled a ring box from his pocket. "Caitlin Elizabeth Todd, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

I nodded, unable to speak. As he slipped the ring onto my finger, the applause was drowned out once I leaned into his kiss.

**The End**


End file.
